Jan/Feb 19 - ChannelVision Magazine

Mobile & Wireless At this point, most 802.11ax prod- ucts that we have seen to date have been consumer-focused. However, there has been some early movement in the enterprise space. In November, Aruba launched its 510 Series 802.11ax enterprise access points. Shortly after, Spirient announced an 802.11ax testing solution to accelerate the adoption of Wi- Fi 6 technology. And at the Snapdragon Summit in December, Qualcomm demon- strated the 802.11ax-ready Snapdragon 855 mobile platform. The 802.11ax standard will be back- ward-compatible, meaning businesses won’t have to replace existing devices to work with new routers. However, most 802.11ax features will require cli- ent device support to operate, which will take some time. “My personal concern will be the adoption rate in how quickly the equipment and devices will sup- port (802.11ax),” explained Clayton Banka, product engineer at BullsEye Telecom. “People just upgraded their iPhones this past fall and spring, and those devices do not support the standard. 802.11ax routers are start- ing to pop up, but most of those are made for consumers only. But within the next six months to a year, that will change and everyone will be offer- ing it. But as with any new technol- ogy, there will be a three to five year window for people to replace their equipment and software before that technology is really out there.” The strong demand for wireless connectivity will fuel spending on wire- less local area networks, according to industry analyst Kurt Marko. Yet as these new standards grow into house- hold names, they will create a great deal of confusion for business lead- ers, especially at the SMB level. Many business owners know they need to upgrade their networks but aren’t sure how or when to proceed. Partners can reduce confusion for clients during this transitory time, and protect them from buying products and services they may not need, by ar- ranging managed Wi-Fi partnerships with aggregators such as BullsEye Telecom, Spectrum, Sify, Comcast Business and Powernet. By outsourc- ing Wi-Fi management to a third- party provider, a business can receive hassle-free and cost-effective Wi-Fi, supported by the latest available tech- nologies. Managed Wi-Fi providers can also provide expert guidance for transitioning to new standards such as 802.11ax. Plus, as BullsEye vice president of channel sales Brian Babich pointed out, offering managed Wi-Fi to a customer can open the door to many other lucra- tive conversations. “Managed Wi-Fi is another Trojan horse into a business,” Babich said. “Partners may start by focusing on this conversation, and then lead into our additional pillars such as security, VoIP, POTS or SD-WAN. All of the pillars lean on and support each other in the grand scheme of things.” o January - February, 2019 | Channel Vision 23